"A dedicated investment in smallholder
farmers to enable them to improve their land use and productivity is critical to achieve sustainable and inclusive growth in African countries. The New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition focuses on public-private
partnership with local investors and
multinational corporations to produce
food. However, this is unlikely to solve chronic problems of hunger, malnutrition and poverty because of under-investment in smallholder agriculture, and the rolling back of state support following structural adjustment programmes from the 1980s onwards. The initial signs of New Alliance implementation, instead of reversing
this chronic under-investment in smallholder
agriculture, suggests the adoption of corporate agriculture, either turning smallholder farmers into wage workers and hooking them into value chains in which they have to compete with MNCs, or expelling them to search for alternative livelihoods in the growing cities.We argue that African countries engaging with the New Alliance should focus instead on securing citizens’ access to land, water and improved governance. African countries have a better
chance of addressing the root causes behind
rural poverty and low agricultural productivity."
by investing directly in smallholder farmers
themselves.